Arab Chieftains Demand Right to Sell to Jews

A movement to repeal the edict prohibiting sale of land to Jews in Transjordan was started here today by a number of Arab sheikhs.

Anxious to attract Jews to Transjordan and to develop the country along the same lines as Palestine, the leading sheikhs of Transjordan have called upon Arab landowners of the country to organize and to submit a petition to the British government asking that the ban be withdrawn.

As a result of the call a meeting was held today in which many heads of Arab tribes participated. The meeting adopted a resolution asking the cancellation of the anti-Jewish laws, “because Jewish money which is destined to develop Transjordan is being diverted to Syria.”

EXPLAINS SIGNIFICANCE OF COUNTRY TO BRITAIN

What the opening of Transjordan for Jewish settlement would mean to the British policy in the Near East is outlined in an article in the Pro-Palestine Herald.

Owen Stratford, the writer of the article, a London journalist, says that Winston Churchill, who was instrumental in separating Transjordan from Palestine, is now being criticized for severing this territory and hampering its development by blocking its eco-

ASK BRITAIN TO REPEAL ACT CURBING SALE OF LAND IN TRANSJORDAN

nomic and political progress.

“The problem of Transjordan looms up in the British horizon more and more as grievously affecting the safety of the Empire’s communications with Iraq and faraway India,” the writer asserts.

POLICY CRIPPLES LAND

“Due to its forced separation from Western Palestine, Transjordan remained an economically crippled and politically uncertain province, dependent for its continued existence upon the financial support of the British government which, in turn, passes on the burden to the treasury of the Palestine administration.

“While Western Palestine, due to the influx of Jewish settlers and capital, made gigantic strides forward to the point of increasing the surplus available in the treasury of the Palestine government to the staggering amount of over $20,000,000, Transjordan remained in the primitive state of a desert-reservation being a cumbersome liability to the British Exchequer.

POVERTY CAUSE OF UNREST

“Moreover, the poverty of Transjordan and the backwardness of its sparsely settled population are direct causes for the spirit of restlessness which pervades its population and threatens the stability of the regime of Emir Abdullah which is being artificially propped up, from time to time, by gifts of money distributed among the Arab chieftains of the different tribes inhabiting the country.

“Only recently, the Palestine government had to grant a large sum of money to the Emir for this purpose, which sum was distributed, ostensibly to relieve the prevailing distress of the peasants, but actually to appease the discontent of the Arab chieftains with prevailing conditions.

WOULD STEM AGITATION

“The opening of Transjordan to Jewish settlers would effectively block the agitation of super-patriotic Arab zealots who now claim that the Jews are crowding out the Arabs from their positions in Palestine. It would also remove the just grievances of the Zionists against the arbitrary and harmful policy of the Palestine authorities, a policy which does not permit Jewish capital and labor to fertilize the now barren territory east of the Jordan River.

“The placing of Transjordan within the sphere of Jewish resettlement activities in the land of Israel, at this time, would also offer the only rational and practical solution of the problem of immigration, now faced by the persecuted Jews of Germany, Poland, Rumania and Austria. From an international political viewpoint again, the inclusion of Transjordan within the Jewish colonization scheme, would place Great Britain in the forefront as the nation who has done most for the salvation and protection of the weak and disinherited ones.”